As if we didn't have sufficient reasons to hate the ILAF prats

March 29, 2013

A few weeks ago, I attended the Women and Leadership conference on campus that featured a conversation between President Shirley Tilghman and Wilson School professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, and I participated in the breakout session afterward that allowed current undergraduate women to speak informally with older and presumably wiser alumnae. I attended the event with my best friend since our freshman year in 1973. You girls glazed over at preliminary comments about our professional accomplishments and the importance of networking. Then the conversation shifted in tone and interest level when one of you asked how have Kendall and I sustained a friendship for 40 years. You asked if we were ever jealous of each other. You asked about the value of our friendship, about our husbands and children. Clearly, you don’t want any more career advice. At your core, you know that there are other things that you need that nobody is addressing. A lifelong friend is one of them. Finding the right man to marry is another.

Jesus. The “MRS degree”? What fucking year is this again? 2013, right?

Oh, right. It’s because the elite of this world have such special problems in this regard, isn’t it?

As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. And I say again — you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you.

Of course, once you graduate, you will meet men who are your intellectual equal — just not that many of them. And, you could choose to marry a man who has other things to recommend him besides a soaring intellect. But ultimately, it will frustrate you to be with a man who just isn’t as smart as you.

So Princeton has cornered the market on smart men, eh? What easily falsifiable claptrap. Maybe once these Precious Princetonian Princesses are out in the world they find that the “smart men” aren’t enamored of elitist, pretentious twits who have fully embraced their ILAF snobbery? naaahh…. couldn’t be.

Here is another truth that you know, but nobody is talking about. As freshman women, you have four classes of men to choose from. Every year, you lose the men in the senior class, and you become older than the class of incoming freshman men. So, by the time you are a senior, you basically have only the men in your own class to choose from, and frankly, they now have four classes of women to choose from. Maybe you should have been a little nicer to these guys when you were freshmen?

If I had daughters, this is what I would be telling them.

I don’t even know where to start. The assumption that you can only marry a man your age or older if you are a woman? This woman has basically failed to mature past the highschool prom level. My goodness what a twit. Or is this really about the underclassmen failing to put out enough for her darling boys who allegedly have their pick of any woman in the world?

I am the mother of two sons who are both Princetonians. My older son had the good judgment and great fortune to marry a classmate of his, but he could have married anyone. My younger son is a junior and the universe of women he can marry is limitless.

Rest easy, o ye Editors of Glamour Magazines of Science. I have been reminded that there are many who will be up against the wall before you, come the revolution.

Oh boy. I think this line was my favorite: “For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you.”

(For the record, I (female) married someone I met in college (male) who is younger than me, and not in science, and not interested in getting a PhD.)

My wife was a student at the same university, she was a year older than me, and a year ahead of me in her studies. She is smarter than me in some ways, and is probably better known professionally than I am.

“For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you…..”

Uh…wow…

“….so GET F**KING. ” That’s the unspoken part of the message, right?

Although, this isn’t the bluntest way this sort of thing has been stated. Apparently there’s an epidemic of “leftover women” in China despite the gender imbalance, because men want to “marry down”. (It’s a thing. Google those terms.) So, much like the sad princeton princess who didn’t put out in college and therefore will not get a prince….smart, accomplished Chinese women also are left without a man. So they should just kill themselves I guess, because god forbid you don’t get a man.

The view of these Princeton Princesses merely reflect the attitude of American women at large, namely that they are too good for most of the men out there; therefore, they constantly complain by asking “where did all the good men go?” They simply cannot grasp why tall, alpha-males, with good looks, and lots of money (like in the movies) are not interested in them; or why they are constantly pumped-and-dumped. Simply put, their sense of entitlement vastly exceeds their real world options. So, what this lady is saying is quite simple: act fast and get someone in Princeton lest you will have a lonely existence because you are too good for the men out there.

With such a sense of entitlement, coupled with a terribly biased Family Law system where men are ass-raped in “no-fault” divorce proceedings, it is no wonder that few American men want to marry American women, and in effect a marriage strike has been initiated by the men. And these men are right. With a divorce rate close to 60%, one would be crazy to marry an American woman these days. American women think they are too good, make terrible wives, and will take most of the men’s wealth by filing a no-fault divorce.

Ugh, where as, which nationality, exactly do the women think “they’re not good enough, make good –subservient– wives, and safely allow the man to control all the family resources”? I guess maybe the ones who don’t have visas? Ugh, I guess it’s not surprising that a letter like this one brings out the ugly.

Hate when all Ivy League schools are lumped into sweeping generalizations. I am a Cornell grad and while I’m sure this sort of mindset wasn’t absent to all who attend, it certainly wasn’t common to anyone in my circles.

As a female with PhD, I will say that IS difficult to meet men outside of academia who are as accepting of my educational background. It’s not elitism on my part, it has more to do with having common interests and feeling, I dunno, intellectually compatible.

Interesting note: my BF has a PhD but he’s also six years younger than me. SO THERE. Then again, what do I know. I went to a state school.

I agree with KK PHD – it is quite true that many men are intimidated by highly educated women (ivy league or not). Therefore there is some truth that it is easier to find a mate while in college, before he knows you as an ultra-educated, accomplished, female. This doesn’t mean that highly educated, successful female PHDs can’t find their mates after college, but it is more difficult. The man also does not always have to be as educated as the woman, but they do need to be secure enough in themselves such that they are not intimidated by successful, powerful, highly educated women.

Most men – especially younger ones – do have problems marrying such women and putting her career above theirs, or being the one who compromises for her career. If she wants to work in academia, then usually her husband does need to make compromises – (such as where they live, and be supportive of the fact that a job in academia is not like traditional jobs 9-5, etc.) – unless she meets him after she secures her tenure-track job. Even then, studies have shown that for most women, being successful in academia is not helped by being married, whereas the opposite is true for men:

However despite my views about the difficulties associated with highly educated women finding successful long-term male relationships, this does not excuse what was written to start this blog topic!! OMG.

Are you kidding? Men are not at all “intimidated by highly educated women.” At least not the tall, strong, good looking, confident, successful men that women desire the most. If there a dude out there intimidated by an educated women, that relationship won’t last long. Women are not interested in these weak fellows.

Men are mostly physical animals, and their sexual desire is what motivates them to pursue females. Women in academia are not good looking. Most of them are 2-3/10; what men would bother with that? There much superior options out there. Men are not interested in talking about failed experiments or triaged grants; and men could care less about the “ultra-education” of women in academia.

In sum, men don’t pursue women in academia because men are not sexually attracted to women in academia. That simple.

@DJMH–If instead of pursuing your alcoholic tendencies, you’d hit the gym and start taking care of your looks, I bet men would be more interested in you.

But in all seriousness… Compare the average PhD female (grad student/postdoc/asst prof) to some other “highly educated” female, like those with a JD, MD, or PharmD and quite simply there is no match. In terms of qualities males are looking for, the PhDs come dead last–by a mile.

The qualities that are most consistently represented in the women this particular male has been drawn to “pursue” as you put it NBC, are smarts and self-assuredness. Tremendous consistency there. Otoh, on the scale of traditional notions of physical attractiveness there has been wide variance.

Science is very much an old boys network….and will be, until female mentors are churning out an equivalent number of newly minted P.I.s Even then, gender is irrelevant…the trials and trivalis that one encounters on the road to getting a PhD from a top 20 institution are pretty dehumanizing. When you are done, its hard to tell if you are a boy or a girl (but you better be able to tangle with the old boys on your committee…or you fail). Right now, science doesn’t know what to do with female scientists that retain their sexuality…although they seem to be amused if you wear a dress. In grad school and beyond, the expectation is that female scientists eventually, give up (to their instinctual urge to breed…) or harden up (and get tenure).

Wife/Mother + PI…there are a few and they juggle both roles with ease, because…well, they are—Amazing. They are also generally married to VERY understanding men (eg—available to share the work of child rearing).

On the whole issue of “scientists aren’t attracted to scientists”. WELL…successful male PIs are generally former nerds made good. The tightest inverse relationship I have ever seen….is between low social IQ and age of first ROI —while I haven’t looked into it….I am sure these uber nerds go on to run the big labs. If you want to feel bad for someone, feel bad for the unmarried junior PI….that hasn’t got his first grant yet. Female scientists are smart enough and attractive enough, to snag the guy we want exactly when they want him.

From a genetics standpoint it makes perfect sense that female ILAs would mate with male ILAs and breed little entitled ILAs. This tendency would be a selected trait if being an ILA somehow let you get ahead in life, for instance in a society obsessed with degrees from ivy league institutions. Keeping their gametes within their undergrad circle would increase the fitness of their offspring.

I say let them. In a few hundred thousand years, they will become reproductively isolated, and eventually they’ll evolve into a separate species. Then we can enslave them or exterminate them.

A bit off of the main topic, imc22, but I have observed that successful women PIs that retain a strong femle edge are Super successful. I think the general low emoIQ of male scientists and especially the old guard leaves them bumbling and unable to compete with a smart woman. They are then primed for subtle emotional manipulation. So the old boys club has an achilles heel in that respect. Of course this could just be me projecting.

From the original letter, I just don’t get why the end of undergrad is such a serious deadline to find a spouse. If a woman doesn’t get married to a suitable life partner by the end of undergrad, isn’t that why she then enters a prestigious grad school to give herself 5-10 more years to find an elite spouse?

The underlying weirdness of this is, if I’ve seen any mismatch in matchmaking, it’s that more women are seeking a copartner in marriage who will share marital responsibilities, such as child raising, than there are men willing to take this role. Men who understand this might be skewed to the more educated, but this isn’t something to assume about the men at any elite college.

Ah, there’s the catch. Feminism has always had to contend with the contrarian views of mothers without daughters, because the natural tendency to place the welfare of one’s offspring above everything else, including the moral and political, can be too strong to overcome. Strong, independent women = little Johnny Junior actually having to make an effort to get his end away.

Perrhaps the better advice for these young Princetonian women is to be wary of the fact that mother’s without daughters tend to make for the worst mother-in-laws.

“After 27 years together, Patton and her ex-husband finalized their divorce last month. “He went to a school of almost no name recognition,” she said, declining to name the institution. “Almost no name recognition. A school that nobody has respect for, including him, really.”

It took 27 yrs for her to figure out that a) she doesn’t like rubes and b) that her husband was one?

“That way I could have embraced Princeton for the thirty years that I stayed away from it because my ex-husband had no respect for the hoopla, the traditions, the allegiance, the orange and black … It wasn’t until both of our sons became Princetonians, and my marriage ended, that I was able to again embrace the university, and I did so with both arms.”

And I feel sorry for most American women, since most of them are like this Princeton Princess. They are emotionally unstable and angry at men. They are at war with men. Marrying one is like sleeping with a loaded gun, and sooner or later their selfish pursuit of their “hapiness” will wreck the family. Why any man would risk their future and invest in them is beyond my comprehension? Men should run away from them like the plague, and in the recent past American men have just started doing that.

Fortunately for you guys in the sciences, there a lot of international women around. They are smarter, more accomplished, and much more emotionally stable, mostly because they are not so selfish. Chances that they will wreck your life for no good reason in the future are much lower. If you don’t believe what I am saying about American women, then do the experiment yourself: date a foreign woman. You will see how much more enjoyable and fun it is to go out with someone who is just a happy being and also interested in your happiness. Bottom line, why settle for a rusty and unsafe 1968 VW Beetle when you could be riding a Ferrari?

Oh, Big Dude, did someone break your heart? I’m guessing, since you sound like a textbook MRA, that you feel mistreated by someone. I guess, since you hate American women so much, she must have been one.

Let me get this straight. Her pursuit of happiness is “selfish” but yours isn’t?

Many years ago I read an article, perhaps in Time magazine, that argued that the effect, function, whatever, of graduate school was to bring together superior men and women so they could get married and improve the species.

There are, in fact, more degreed younger women in the population than there are degreed younger men. This is particularly true within black and Hispanic groups.

While saying that the main purpose of going to Princeton is to snag a top-quality spouse is an eye-roller, I do have to wonder about some other places. Think about some of the tiny liberal arts colleges in New England (the ones that routinely host Gordon Research Conferences). What are the purposes of these colleges? Going to Princeton will get you a top notch education and job connections and that will help your career. Everyone has heard of Princeton. But going to Colby-Sawyer College or the like….one of those obscure and ridiculously pricey private colleges….what does that get you? I asked someone and he theorized that those are the types of places that are the full-on marriage markets. Huge tuitions and probably not much funding available to enable the “not quite our kind” types to attend.

Many SLACs in the northeast are designed to accommodate the Ivy overflow; that is, the students who were Ivy or Bust, went Bust, and made the decision to stay in the northeast at fill-in-the-blank SLAC rather than go to yucky Michigan or Stanford or some shit. To that end, they remain among “their own kind” and I’m sure the schools do function as marriage factories. This is what I have observed in the time I have spent postdoc’ing in the northeast, at an Ivy in fact, and speaking with faculty at some of these SLACs. This shit is bananas, like another country to me. Doucheland.

This woman is sad, her life empty and her values meaningless. However, I do not feel sorry for her any more than I feel sorry for Big Dude or NIH Budget Cutter. All these lives appear sad and lonely, full of mistaken assumptions about the humans around them, causing them to so utterly misjudge their approach to humanity that I fear they will be lonely for the rest of their lives.

Related, I have gotten hit on way more after getting my PhD, more and more as my career has advanced, despite having been happily married for many years. Having only grown less compliant, older, and more interested in the topics of grant triage and strategy in the intervening time, I conclude that these are in fact the most attractive qualities possible in a woman, and I await my R21 to explore evolutionary mechanisms linking reproductive fitness to these factors.

I do feel bad for that silly woman who obviously lives in a toxic and myopic bubble. “I couldn’t appreciate Princeton because my husband wasn’t up to snuff” or whatever the hell she means. Btw trashing their father is sure to endear her boys to her. The ‘American women’ crap is just easy crap to blow off. But why is it that everyone feels compelled to jump in and judge someone? I mean judge people by what they say and do – fine – the crazy Princeton lady, the American women dudes sure, they are whankers. But why does this spin off to ‘people who to SLACs’ are just looking to stay in there own circle’? Maybe just maybe we could imagine that we don’t know why other people make choices different than ours but that they might still be decent, reasonable people. Tolerance – give it a try -or you’ll end up more like the Princeton lady that you might like.

Of course, once you graduate, you will meet men who are your intellectual equal — just not that many of them.

If we assume that intelligence is normally distributed and that college graduates skew to the right of the curve and that most of the people you meet in everyday life are not college grads (~25% according to Wikipedia), this statement is probably true. But what do I know, I went to a schools for undergrad and grad and, after Googling, still don’t know what ILAF is.

I agree that Princeton is kind of special and produces a kind of fanatical undergrad (they also have phenom. graduation rates and rates of alumni giving– I know this because a Princeton grad told me). I’m not sure if they’re running an university or cult in that small NJ town, but I have never seen more school spirit from alumns than I have from Princeton alumns. Other ivies you have to look at the cv of a 30+ year old to know where they went to college. Princeton graduates let you know the first time you meet them. (And true, it may not be all Princeton grads, but I have yet to see a cv or resume of a Princeton grad that didn’t inform me in person.) They also somehow still have Princeton t-shirts and sweatshirts that get regular wear if you meet them in the grocery store. (The rest of us replaced our undergrad stuff with grad stuff and then our current university stuff as it wore out and we got new freebies.)

Why has no one addressed the dearth of genuinely good-looking men in science and medicine?!?!?!?!?! I mean, the last male model that I knew was a tech in a lab. C’mon guys!!!!! How is anyone supposed to marry you?

Oh, wait. A foreign woman who wants an easier in to U.S. citizenship might be willing.

1.) ancient white dude with visible noise and ear hairs
2.) prematurely balding younger(-ish) white dude who only talks about sports
3.) white younger(-ish) dude with a noticeable paunch who only talks about sports
4.) really young white dude who wants to go to med school (junior tech = undergrad/recent undergrad/summer intern)
5.) older white dude who wanted to go to med school, back in the day (senior tech)

Sometimes, the dudes have a combination of more than one of the traits listed above (like premature balding and paunch).

What an *amazing* array of choices for a young, heterosexual female interested in marriage! Especially since most of these guys have absolutely no social skills and don’t seem to care about learning how to clean up after themselves!

I could not agree more. The pool of “good” men available out there for your high standards is so small that it makes my sexual life so much easier. The men you are talking about are the “nice guys.” Women are not interested in them.

Instead, they prefer someone like me. I am 30 with a PhD in Biostats and a 150k salary in the private sector. I am 6’1”, lift weights and exercise daily, and can smooth talk in ease. I am very confident in myself and women love that. Thus, getting laid is no hard task; in fact, women in their mid to late 30s regularly volunteer their phone numbers to me. One can see desperation in their eyes. With these ladies, I need no game at all. They do the whole thing. Give me their phone number and then invite me for coffee or dinner at their place. All I do is get comfortable in their couches and enjoy the show. And that is indeed an area where American women are vastly superior to their Foreign counterparts–giving it up on the very first date.

@ Amy

Yes, someone did break my heart–my mother, an American indeed. She dumped my “nice guy,” hard working, responsible dad to pursue an affair and destroyed the family in the process. That was my first encounter with the “no fault divorce” American Family Law. She got alimony and child support and most of the assets. The poor man died broke while my mom financed her Caribbean cruise tours with his life’s earnings. She was only pursuing HER happiness.

I thought that maybe this experience was a fluke. But as my brother and most of my friends who got married are now divorced (yes by age 30 or so and already divorced), and got a raw deal in Court, despite the fact that in all these cases the ex-wives were having affairs, I can only conclude that marriage is not worth it for men. The divorce rate is higher than 50% and she will take the children and most of the money. Why would a man get married these days is beyond my comprehension?

And about regrets, the only ones I have are having dumped some of the Foreign women I have dated. I was a fool to let them go. Fortunately, I am still young and there is a sea of women out there, though not so many Foreign women in the private sector unlike academia. But dating Foreign women is such a joy. They actually take care of their bodies, are not overweight, and are not at war with men. One can actually talk to them and reach compromises without ultimatums.

“They are emotionally unstable and angry at men.”
Says the guy who is emotionally unstable and angry at women. You know, BD, you’re (supposedly) a stats guy. If most of your interactions with American women have been disasters, at some point you’ve got to think….”maybe it’s me.” You’re the only constant in your trainwreck of a personal life.

(Hint: it’s you.)

(Note: given the ESL grammatical errors that creep into his posts, and the nature of what he’s shilling, I’m expecting some links to sites like http://www.russianbrides4you.com to show up in his diatribes pretty soon.)

Instead, they prefer someone like me. I am 30 with a PhD in Biostats and a 150k salary in the private sector. I am 6’1”, lift weights and exercise daily, and can smooth talk in ease. I am very confident in myself and women love that. Thus, getting laid is no hard task; in fact, women in their mid to late 30s regularly volunteer their phone numbers to me. One can see desperation in their eyes. With these ladies, I need no game at all. They do the whole thing. Give me their phone number and then invite me for coffee or dinner at their place. All I do is get comfortable in their couches and enjoy the show. And that is indeed an area where American women are vastly superior to their Foreign counterparts–giving it up on the very first date.

So what you’re saying is… there’s a lot of really well educated, older or less “nice” women from Princeton who might be giving up on men…
*goes off to create a bisexual/lesbian dating site for nefarious purposes*

Jings, you’re supposed to be ancient when that happens? Goddamn. I had to go through that ugliness the moment I hit 30. That and the eyebrows that suddenly lose their growth regulation and just keep… on… going 😦 I still have all my head hair, but that’s small solace when you’ve got slinky springs randomly erupting from your nostrils. Fuck aging man, I’m done with it, and I’m only 35.

i lament the day i completed this doctoral degree. if only i weren’t so damned accomplished, so brilliant, so advanced in my career doing important things that elicit “wow”s every time my profession comes up in conversation.

there is simply no way for me to snag a “regular” man, i am far too intimidating, too witty, entire levels above them in conversation. i’m so attractive as to be unapproachable by “regular” men at the bar, though i see how many more-than-a-side-glances i get. at the workplace? forget it, i get enough awkward comments from awkward people at awkward times. i guess i should have found that Mega University man while i was still there, or else be chained down to the first man who dares approach someone as fantastically above his level as myself.

shame, shame the day my graduate advisor let me graduate without a life partner in tow. i’ll never do so well as i did there. a terrible, terrible regret that will live with me the rest of my days.

Dear Big Dude,
I am a famous bikini model, and hearing your description of yourself certainly made me take notice. You really do have a lot of confidence! Nothing turns me on more than a smart, tall man with a lot of confidence, no body fat, and a great salary. I would like to have a sex-only relationship with you. If you are interested in my offer, please meet me in Brussels and pick up my luggage en route in La Paz. That is all I ask of you.

My advice to a hypothetical female person thinking to go off to university would be to go to Texas A&M. I think there are still more males than females there, the two professors I know personally are brilliant, and, most of all, Texas A&M has probably the best developed alumni network of any University.

After awarding her the National Medal of technology, President Obama asked Mrs. Brill to go to the White House kitchen and make him some beef stroganoff. He was tired of those damned organic, vegetables from the WH garden.

Playing devil’s advocate here: Why are we hating on this woman’s “alternative hypothesis”? Surely it isn’t suitable for for, let’s say, anyone who is 10-100% empowered feminist. But what about the 0-10% ones who just want to get married and be a housewife?

At the same time, isn’t it no different than what some of us have done, steering undergrads who aren’t driven by a love of science away from biomed PhD programs into healthcare professional degree programs, where they’ll at least be employable.

I forgot! There’s one more type of American male that I should have listed in “Your typical array of choices of American men from the lab”:

* medical fellows – typically already in a relationship with a gold-digger; when these guys do manage to flit through the lab, they usually end up screwing up experiments and wasting lab resources and funding. Not any better looking than anyone else in the lab, but always better dressed, these men have the remarkable ability to go from 0 to 100% douchebag in a single sentence (kinda like the man of steel can leap tall buildings in a single bound!). If they haven’t yet been claimed by a woman, they are either gay or such total narcissists that no one can put up with them.

Also, a couple of small additions:

To the “ancient white dude”: usually mumbles like the god pigeon; like to begin sentences with “when I was a ….”, completely forgetting the fact that you are female and from a different generation and that there can be *no* comparison made between you and the dude who grew up with enormous white male privilege (and whose mothers stayed home).

To the descriptions of all dudes who are not techs or MD fellows, please add: “sometimes enjoy making jokes in bad taste around their female colleagues.”

I went to Reed. My current “mentor” actually left Princeton for UW in Seattle a while back.

One of my quantum profs left Harvard for Reed. Because, I suspect, he want to “teach students”.

I personally only date dudes who know more quantum mechanics than I do. It’s not every gal’s formula, just my own. Am partnered with an Irish theoretical physicist out of Trinity College Dublin who has a strong publishing record in Physical Review Letters. Met him a couple years back during my postdoc in Germany. In a pub.

Dating a good Dublin boy who had to go work on his Grandma’s farm as a kid is refreshing after the American college dating scene. (Although most of my ex’s are married w/ children now.)

At least with respect to RO1s it would seem to argue against the “a bunch of middling non-research intensive institutions jumped on the extramural bandwagon during the doubling” theory that’s occasionally been floated here.